Quote Originally Posted by Brenus
“one of german pilots got over 300 planes destroyed”: Erich Hartman, 352 victories. He wasn’t the only one (Galland, Rall, Nowotny etc).
The big amount of German As is due to several factors: First, some of hem fought during the Spanish Civil War in the Condor Legion with Franco’s Nationalists. Second, at the beginning of the war, their opponents weren’t so well equipped. It is not to deny the courage of the Polish pilots, but a PZPL couldn’t fight against the Me. 109, or the obsolete air forces from Yugoslavia, Holland, Belgium and the early Soviet Air Force. Even France and the UK had some of their planes which could consider as equal as or even better than the Germans. So, some victories were just sitting ducks…
Third, the German never withdraw their pilot from the Front. The allied used their As to teach other pilots to fight.
At the end of the war, you had either Untouchable Germans pilots, either easy target ones.
Brenus,
If you take Hartman as an example: he started his 'career' in 1942. There were no more easy targets. The Russian fighters were as good as the German ones.
I think the main reason is most German pilots stayed in combat until the end. Another reason is that they, especially in the east, had plenty of targets. Hartman could make three or four sorties a day and pick up one or two planes. The RAF or USAAF pilots escorted the big bombers. They flew only few missions per week, some missions without contact with Germans at all. Hard to get 300 scores that way. Another reason: German pilots often fought over or near their own territory. So they could return to combat even after being shot down. If memory serves, Hartman was shot down three times.